Valley Girl Views: Herman School House

Old Herman School

3015 Salem Rd Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania

The Herman School, located on Salem Road, three miles from Route 522 in Penn Township near Selinsgrove, PA. It was the first public school in Snyder County and is the oldest original remaining one-room school in Snyder County today. It was built in 1841 and functioned as a school from 1842 until 1882.

The facebook page states:
" The schoolhouse is open for free tours Sundays from Memorial Day to Labor Day and for other events upon request."

"The Herman School is a one-room schoolhouse that was built in 1841 and functioned from 1842 until 1882. Children ages 6-22 attended school here from December until February. It was the first public school in Snyder County, and it is the only original public school in the area still standing today. The Herman School was restored in 1964.

Volunteers open the school on Sunday afternoons from 1:00-4:00 pm between Memorial Day and Labor Day. You are welcome to visit the school for a tour, and there are no admission charges. "

Snyder County's German population overwhelmingly voted against the Free School Act of 1834 because they opposed taxation for English-based secular education. The county's first public school opened in 1842 on land donated by David Herman to Penn Township.

The school provided basic education for families including the Boyers, Brouses, Fetters, Hermans, and Kratzers. Students aged 6-21 attended the school when it did not interfere with farm chores.

The school was replaced by a newly constructed brick school, named the Boyer school, in 1882.

Recollections Of Miss Phoebe Herman

The land for the school was donated by the great-grandfather of Phoebe Herman.

"My father," Miss Herman continued, "was Dr. Percival Herman who taught one year at the old Herman Schoolhouse before going on to medical college. Some of the boys in his classes were older than he was.

Among the other teachers, I recall, was George Ulrich, a music teacher, who at times would travel on horseback from Selinsgrove to the Herman School.".

A one-room frame building constructed on a fieldstone foundation, Herman Schoolhouse was attended by rural students until 1882. For the next eighty years it stored farm equipment until 1961 when it was rescued by the School Children's Building Restoration Foundation.

In 1961, a campaign began to restore the old school building.

In 2015, the school house bell was returned to the old school.

In the 1940s, Margaret and Frederick Schrader lived across from the Old Herman SChool , which awas being used as a tractor and implement garage. At the time, there was also a smoke house, bank barn, and butcher house/summer kitchen on the grounds.

The bell was mounted on the peak of the roof over the entrance doors. Over time, it was feared that the bell might fall, and possibly injure someone. The bell was taken down and hung on a new arbor between the smoke house and summer kitchen.

After the death of his wife in 1951, Fred Schrader remarried and moved to Winfield, taking the bell with him. At his estate sale, years later, his nephew recognized the bell, purchased it, and offered it to the Herman School Association.